layout.expressive:urban-noir[customized]
art.by:icedetective[ambisis]
inspired.lyrics:days-go-by[dirty-vegas]
inspired.beauty:natascha[mcelhone]
inspired.words:athena[herald]

The cell cot isn't all that uncomfortable, Athena's decided. She's not big enough for it to fell cramped, and she's slept on harder surfaces before. Ignoring curious stares and suggestive remarks from the cell across from her isn't anything new either. So when the officer unlocks the door, she contemplates staying for a moment, keeping her eyes closed as she pretends to sleep. But then there's a second set of footsteps, the sound of a heavy sigh over her, and she opens her eyes, propping herself up on one elbow, to see a tired and frustrated David looking down at her, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Figures they'd call you," she tells him before closing her eyes again, settling back into the cot.

"They didn't call me," he says. "You did."

One eye opens again to look him over. "Oh. Don't remember that."

"Clearly," he sighs. "Do you even remember how you got here?"

"I think I tried to pick a fight with a homeless guy over by the zoo," she answers, already growing bored.

"Close," he says, "except it was outside your building, and it was a street light."

"Huh," she says, holding her hands up to examine them. "That explains the cast."

( Tell me something I haven't already heard. )

Phyllis: "Suppose I let you off with a warning this time."
Walter: "Suppose it doesn't take."
612 words

Athena stares sullenly at her reflection in the mirror, silently cursing the horribly uncomfortable flower girl dress she's wearing and the woman fussing over her - a cousin of her mother's she's never seen before and will never see again, who came down from New York City for the wedding and speaks with an almost indecipherable Russian accent. Her mother sits nearby, wearing a bathrobe to cover her undergarments as she puts the finishing touches on her hair and makeup, aided by more relatives Athena never knew she had. They've all come out of the woodwork to witness this special, perfect day.

"Cheer up, Verochka," her mother chides, looking over. "Today is a celebration, not a funeral. Smile for me."

Athena obeys, plastering on a smile that will become all too comfortable in the years to come. Satisfied, her mother spritzes perfume onto her neck and wrists before rising to finally don the abhorrently lavish wedding gown her soon-to-be husband had specially made.

"Your mother is so beautiful today," the cousin sighs as she douses Athena's head in hairspray, making her cough as it coats her nine-year old lungs, nothing compared to the damage she'll inflict as an adult.

Finally, they all line up just like they'd practiced, waiting outside the church sanctuary for the string quartet to start up the wedding march. After the first phrase, the doors swing open and the bridesmaids and groomsmen proceed down the aisle smiling and laughing. Then it's Athena's turn. She starts on her way, smile stuck on just as her mother requested, tossing rose petals this way and that. Everyone sighs and whispers to the person next to them about how adorable she looks, and how sweet it is that he would make her a part of the ceremony. That's when she sees him on the altar, nearly five year old Kevin fighting to stand still next to him with the ring pillow. She knows he's watching her, judging her, and for a moment she can't help but freeze down the aisle.

It doesn't feel right being here, in this dress, watching her mother marry another man. It isn't right.

She swallows hard as she sees his eyes narrow ever so slightly, knowing that she's the only one who notices. Quickly, she finishes emptying her basket on the floor and takes her place at the end of the bridesmaids, her eyes down and breathing fast as she hears the oohs and ahs accompanying her mother's entrance. After that, she can't remember any of the ceremony, not even that her hand had tried to raise itself when the priest asked for any objections to the marriage. All she remembers is the look her now step-father gave her at the start of the reception, and how it affirmed the fear that had consumed her thoughts earlier.

He was going to make her pay for ruining this day for him, even if it was the slightest offense. And she knew then that this wasn't right, that none of it was, that none of it would ever be. But there was nothing she could do.

"Suddenly it came over me that everything would go wrong."
529 words

Most people are convinced I'm an atheist. I'm not. I definitely believe in God. I don't love Him, and I'm pretty sure He's got nothing but contempt for me. But you can't hate something that doesn't exist, so... I'm a bitter agnostic, I guess.

I used to pray when I was little. I used to believe what my father told me, that God was up in Heaven, looking down on us and protecting us. I stopped believing in a benevolent God the day he died, but I didn't stop believing completely. Holding onto the idea that God's got it out for me has been the only comforting thought in my life for the past twenty-eight years. Because the alternative is that all the shit that's come my way has been by random chance, and I can't believe that anyone would fall on the bad side of the coin that many times.

But knowing that God is up there, plotting the next way to fuck with me, is still bizarrely comforting. I guess there's something about the idea that there is a higher power, even if it is vaguely malevolent, that just helps to put me at ease. Maybe it's because I can assign the blame to someone other than myself and the human race, which makes it all easier to swallow.

Otherwise, I would have taken myself out of this world a long time ago.

242 words

My name is Athena, and I'm powerless.

I've been powerless all my life. At first it was natural, the way you're supposed to be when you're a child. "Innocent" is what everyone else would call it, I guess. And I was, until I turned nine. That was when I found out how cruel the world really was, and I became truly powerless. I couldn't save my father from his fate, and I couldn't save me from mine.

I started drinking early on in high school. It started as something I did at parties every now and then, a momentary distraction from my life. By sixteen, I probably could have outlasted an Irish dockworker. I always told myself that it was okay, given my circumstances. It was genetic, and therefore unavoidable. And if you grew up the way I did, you'd be a drinker too.

This isn't my first time in the program, and I know it won't be the last. Sobriety has a tendency not to stick for very long with me. Sometimes I've wanted it to, but I reach a point where drinking is my only way to cope without completely losing it. Part of me wishes that wasn't so, that I could learn to live without alcohol. But the other part of me is perfectly happy and comfortable with slowly drinking myself to death, and that's the side I listen to. Because deep down, I'm resigned to the fact that this is all part of God's plan for me, and I can't change that. If I've been set on a path to destroy myself, then so be it. I wouldn't be the first. And as long as it would mean a reprieve, I'm okay with giving up any power I might have, if I even had it to begin with.

I've been powerless all my life. I honestly don't know how well I'd fare if that changed.

336 words

The sun is just starting to rise when Athena arrives on scene, ducking under the police tape closing off the dark alley. It's a bad part of town, one she's been to more often than any other. Drug dealers and hookers aren't out of the ordinary; gang wars have left more than few a bodies for her to clean up. But the sight that greets her in the alley is by far the worst she's seen.

Sandra stands at the entry to the alley, staring out at the street, unwilling to face what's behind her. David emerges from behind the dumpster, wiping his mouth. He lights up a cigarette as Athena ties her hair back and crouches down to examine the body.

"You ever see a beating like this?" he asks her, doing his best to avoid looking down.

"Nope," she responds, staring closely at the mangled remains, doing her best to put the memories of her father's corpse out of her mind. "You find any ID on him?"

"Like I'm gonna stick my hands in that," he scoffs, risking a glance down. "Someone wanted this poor son of a bitch dead, that's for sure. First glance, coroner said that under all that blunt force trauma? There's knife wounds, burns, couple of bullets."

"Robbery?" Athena asks, getting up and moving to the dumpster.

"Looks like," David affirms, watching her open it up and pull out a neatly folded stack of clothes. "Or maybe not."

She picks up the wallet perched on top, setting the clothes down as she opens it. For a moment, all she can do is stare at the driver's license sitting in it. Then, with a wry smile, she tosses it to David.

"So," she says, catching his eye, "do I laugh now, or wait 'til it gets funny."

With that she walks away, back under the tape into the early morning light, leaving behind a bewildered Sandra and David.

"What was all that?" Sandra asks. David shrugs, opening the wallet to look at the license, letting out a heavy sigh when he reads the name on it: William Herald.

"Christ," he mutters, tossing the wallet to Sandra so she can see. "It's her step-dad."

"Do I laugh now, or wait 'til it gets funny?"
371 words

Nobody talked after my father my died. Not for a long time. My mother simply moved in silence as she collected his belongings, signed the paperwork. I didn't say anything because I was waiting for her. And because earlier, William had dragged me into the hallway and hit me when I started crying. He said I shouldn't make a fuss. What did he expect? I was nine years old, but I knew what it meant when they pulled the sheet over my father's face. I knew what the too clean tiling and brushed metal doors and eery fucking silence meant. What else could I do but start to cry? But he hit me and told me that big girls don't cry. That Mama wasn't crying. She wasn't making a sound. She was just standing there, staring at the sheet, fiddling with the straps on her purse. Frozen whore.

Nobody said anything when we left, either. William and my mother just held hands across from me in the car. I pressed myself against the window, as far away from his as possible, and focused on not making a sound. I didn't want to get hit again.

We walked silently into the apartment and I ran to my room, crawling into bed and burying my face into my pillow. I was still too afraid to cry, to afraid to make any sound, so I just lay there, listening to the nothingness around me. Then I heard the footsteps going down the hall to my mother's room, the squeak of mattress springs as somebody sat down on the bed. After a while I could hear my mother sobbing, the sound muffled through the walls. I was about to start crying again when I heard her speak, for the first time since we'd left that morning.

"Thank God he's gone."

I clutched my pillow tight as I listened to her sobs fade to soft laughs before they became the noises familiar to me every night that William visited. My jaw tightened and I shut my eyes as I cursed my mother for breaking the silence that had swallowed us before. I desperately wanted it back. At least when nobody talked, I could still pretend that we had been a family.

Mr. Chips: "Silence! Silence! I'll have no more of it!"
John Colley: "No more silence, sir?"
396 words

84: "I don't see how you could ever get old in a world that's always young." - Goodbye, Mr. Chips
285 words

83: "You coward! Are you bragging to the stars?" - A Midsummer Night's Dream
1223 words

It was a sadly familiar routine. Athena hadn't shown up for work; without saying a word, David had left the precinct to find her. On the way over he had called her phone, getting voicemail the first two times and a groggy, "David, go back to the precinct," the last time. But he'd continued on, pulling up in front of her building and greeting the doorman with a wave as he walked in. A few moments later, he was knocking on her door, softly demanding to be let in. When she opened the door for him the first time around, it caught him off guard.

"You, uh ... you didn't come in today," he said, looking around. She had gone back to the couch where she was nursing her 10 AM whiskey, but she didn't look like he was expecting her to. No red eyes from crying all night, no trashed apartment from an alcohol fueled rage. "Are you ..."

"Okay?" she scoffed. "David, I'm fine. I quit."

( Why deny who we are? )

Athena Herald
Original Character
"[Human] Nature... is what we are put in this world to rise above."
546 words

It started when Athena was seven and her parents began having heated arguments in the alley behind the brick townhouse they lived in. She knew they liked to pretend that nobody could see or hear them there, but she also knew that sometimes grown ups were silly and needed to have their little bubble of fantasy. The neighbors knew it as well, surreptitiously closing their windows and doors save for the smallest crack through which they could listen to the sound of a marriage deconstructing itself, grateful that tonight it wasn't theirs. In the afternoons, the mothers and wives would see her walking home from school and wave to her, smiling sadly as they shook their heads and whispered to their own children that they should be nice to the girl in the middle of the block because she probably wasn't happy at home.

( None of them were surprised when Marina finally loaded up the car ... )

Athena Herald
Original Character
"Well I ain't sorry for you no more!"
519 words

It's embarrassingly stupid when I think about it now, but when you're nine years old and forced to live with a step-father who hates you and a mother who'd rather spend her time with your new step-brother, the idea that your Papa's ghost comes to visit you is the most comforting thought there is. For years I was convinced that my Papa came down from Heaven to protect me in death from what he hadn't been able to save from in life. When William would get a phone call that would distract him long enough for me to run away and hide for the rest of the night, that was Papa. When I "fell" down the stairs and broke my leg instead of my neck, that was Papa.

( Those who are dead are not dead, they're just living in my head )

"Do you think the dead come back and watch the living?"
372 words

I didn't sleep that night. I know it's bad to do when you're pregnant, but I just couldn't be tired. Not when I had so much to do before I left for Tel Aviv. The mail had been stopped, my passport and visa were taken care of. But the packing - good God, the packing. When you're moving across the world, it's near impossible to decide what you're going to need right away and what you can wait for while it gets shipped.

It didn't help that I kept stopping to think about what our life would be like. How our home would be small, but comfortable. How the desert heat would try its best to kill me in my last two trimesters.

About how beautiful our son would be and how I would give him the childhood I so dearly missed.

That morning I thought about Ravi and how long it had been since I'd seen him. We'd talked almost every night since he'd gone back, but it couldn't compare with being with him. The day before, we'd talked about everything we'd do once I arrived - the very first being a family gathering with his parents and his sister, who'd be traveling from Gaza. I never imagined that I could feel so excited; now, a day before I left, it was finally sinking in that I was going to be married and a mother.

I realized, as I sipped on my juice and wrote out my to-do list for the day, that I finally felt as young as I was. That I had felt that way since I met Ravi and the world hadn't come crashing down around me.

( Unbeknownst to me, it was crashing down around him. )

"In a few hours, you've grown so much older."
706 words

In a normal person's life there are expected moments of happiness - after great achievements like college graduations and first promotions, or moments of incredible personal fulfillment like getting married and having children. Some people feel happy when they're with family or friends, or doing something they love. They're happy when they're on vacation, sun bathing on a beach or skiing or riding a roller coaster. But at some point, usually more than once, they're happy.

( I envy those people. )

"Happiness is something I know nothing about."
408 words

Hi, my name is Athena, and I'm an alcoholic. My last drink was ... hell, who am I kidding, I'm still buzzed. So I guess that means I should preface this by saying that I have not come to this meeting of my own volition. Nor have I come by order of the court, like some of you fine people out there, enjoying the coffee and snickerdoodles. No, I stand before you today at the request of my mother and her step-son - that's him in the back, hi, Kevin - who feel that my drinking has become excessive in the wake of the sudden ending of a very serious relationship with a man I loved for ... oh, eight years and only recently was able to actually be with. Which I think, given the circumstances, is perfectly reasonable. My drinking, that is, not them dragging me here. That, I can assure you, isn't going to be forgotten or forgiven for a long itme.

Anyways, I've been drinking for ... you know, I don't even know how long. Since some time in high school. I guess you couldn't really say I was an alcoholic until college, although I was probably predisposed to it. My father ... um, my father had a real serious problem just before his death. It was the main reason why my mother left him, which led to all kinds of other ... other, uh, stories that I won't bother you with.

The thing is - I know that it's bad to drink like I do, I know it's bad to seek solace in a bottle and not in therapy or something healthier - no, stop clapping because you're not gonna like where I'm going with this. I know it's bad for me to have these habits, but I don't give a shit. See, I told you that you wouldn't like it. Because the honest to God truth is I like being buzzed, I like being drunk, because when I am ... when I am it's enough that I can fool myself into feeling close to happy. It's my Prozac, just without the prescription. And you may think I'm a fucked up person for saying so - but I am, so ... well, I guess I don't really have anything to say to that.

But you all should aim for sobriety. I'm serious. Because for all of you, it'll probably make your lives so much better. And if you can do it and stick with it, more power to you. I'll buy you a ginger ale, or whatever the fuck sober people drink. Me? I'd spend every sober minute of every sober day thinking about how much better my life would be if I was drinking. I wouldn't last a day. That's why all this is pointless for me, why I'm standing up here telling you all of this. Because I'm hoping you'll kick me out and I'll have a legitimate excuse for not coming back. It's why I stopped going to rehab.

Yeah, it's okay, you can laugh at that one.

"People like doing what they used to do, after they've stopped being able to do it."
539 words

I never wanted to be a mother.

Okay, that's kind of a lie. I didn't want to be a mother when I was younger. Then at one point, motherhood was imminent, and I was even looking forward to it, until it didn't happen. So I went back to not wanting it. Ever. And that was fine, because it couldn't have it. There was no way for it to happen the natural way, and I sure as hell wasn't going to go through all the trouble of adopting some kid just to fuck his life up more. It didn't matter what any of the guys I dated wanted because we were never together long enough to have "that talk", and the one guy I actually loved enough to have "that talk" with knew me well enough not to have it.

I thought I was in the clear. Sure, some things had gone all to hell; I spent my 37th birthday unemployed, sleeping on the couch in the living room that used to be mine while the man I still loved slept upstairs with his pregnant wife. But things could have been a lot worse, trust me. I could have been sleeping in the bedroom that used to be mine in the house that used to be my step-father's. Not that it's any better now that it belongs to my mother, but at least it's hers because the son of a bitch died.

Oh, and at least I'm not sober. Because I've been on that wagon before, and believe me, I'd much rather go through life with a bottle of vodka in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other.

That was up until a couple weeks ago. I was still been living with the guy and his wife. Of course, his wife wasn't pregnant any more because babies have a way of being born. At least usually, but when was my life ever usual? And like the spoiled bitch that she was, she decided it would be nice to make me do all the work so she could bask in the the new mommy glory - which, hey, if she wanted to have a chain-smoking drunk changing her precious kid's diapers, I wasn't going to be the one to complain when CPS came and took the kid.

Neither, apparently, was she. Because after three weeks - not even a month - of being the mother of little Alexander David Morrison, she hopped in her car in the middle of the night and didn't come home. Of course, the bitch meant to not come home by taking a flight to God only knows where; instead, she ended up wrapping her car around a light pole or a tree (I didn't really care about all the details) and ended up in the morgue. And you may think I'm being cold by saying she got less than she deserved, but if you knew her like I did, you'd be agreeing with me.

All of that to say, after all my years of proudly defying my maternal instinct - well, really, wondering if I even have it - I've been scrambling to find it, because I'm now Mama De Facto for this tiny little thing she left behind, this kid who I hated when his status as a living being was debatable. And I know that ten Lifetime executives are waiting with pens in hand for to me to say, "and then the sun came out and I became the best mommy in the whole wide world!" so they can write their next TV cryfest, but they're just going to have to go somewhere else. Because I'm still at two packs a day, it's probably a fire hazard for me to even hold a lighter that close while I exhale, and you can bet that little Xander's getting formula otherwise he'd be over the legal limit too.

Because let's face it. I'm a mother now, whether I like it or ... well, really, I hate it, but tomorrow is another day. And I have to get through it one way or another. Might as well do it the way I like to.

"After all, tomorrow is another day."
692 words

So, things have been pretty quiet over here for the past couple months. This is due to two factors. The first is school (I'm at the end of the finals period right now, after taking a max course load in a participation intensive major, so that's where most of my time's gone).

The second is a long convoluted story that doesn't involve me directly, and at this point is pretty much over. But for a while there, it was really bad, and put some very dear friends of mine through hell.

All of this, coupled with some new business practices that have been popping up over the past few months, have made me come to the decision that Athena's time here at LiveJournal is coming to an end. I have one big fic that I'm going to write (in installments) and post here, but other than that ... finito. Kaput. できた。 I'm considering moving her to IJ, but I may just retire her from the public altogether (since, realistically, it's impossible to stop writing for her altogether).

It's been a great ride over the past two and a half years, and we both have enjoyed everyone she's met. Thank you all.

~ Em

Athena wakes in the middle of the night, shaken by some unknown force. She rises slowly, massaging out the crook in her neck in what's become an all too familiar habit. The sofa springs creak softly as she swings her legs over the side and she cringes for a moment, worried his wife will come rushing down the stairs, raging in violent whispers about how she needs her sleep.

( I'm Always Drowning in My Grief )

It hadn't taken long for Athena to settle into her room at Wellesley.  She hadn't thought to bring much beyond what she needed with her; making her dorm room feel like "home" was definitely not on her list of goals.  Her family had driven up the day before, and she had sworn never to spend eight hours in a car with them again.

She had claimed the bed on the right side of the room, sliding her trunk under it before sitting on the comforter, waiting for her roommate to show.  Which took all of thirty seconds.

The voices were the first thing she heard; accented, definitely south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  They died down as they reached the door, and someone knocked politely - Athena wanted to call it demure, even.

"Come in," she said, trying not to be nervous about who would be waiting on the other side.

( Dearest Darlingest Momsie and Popsicle ... )